K.A.C. 2024 - T - 17 Days ...

     1983, the Year of the Locusts, when Hell descended on Earth in the form of crazed parents for the 'MUST HAVE' Christmas toy of the year, the Cabbage Patch Doll.

     This doll and the rabid riots, fights and price gouging resellers are at the base of the ugly precursor to Black Friday, with footage of a store owner on a counter with a baseball bat screaming at rioters lunging for these dolls. The whole sordid tale is shown in both the video below and a few different takes on when Christmas civility began its downward spiral to outright hostility:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzfuo94KCe8 

     https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/how-cabbage-patch-kids-craze-of-1983-helped-create-black-friday-as-we-know-it-120050842.html 

     https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/cabbage-patch-kids-a-1983-phenomenon/ 

     

     '83 was also the year a classic holiday film premiered, A Christmas Story, based on the story by Jean Shepherd. I'm SURE you've seen it by now, right? RIGHT? If so, here's two articles of interest - first up, from Vanity Fair, 'How A Christmas Story Went from Low-Budget Fluke to an American Tradition':

     https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/how-a-christmas-story-became-an-american-tradition 

     Next, if you think the film exists in its own little bubble, think again, as F5 bring you the tale of 'A Christmas Story (1983) …and the Ralphie Parker Cinematic Universe'.

https://www.forcefivepodcast.com/blog/a-christmas-story-and-the-ralphie-parker-cinematic-universe 

We'll leave you today with our next 2024 Christmas ad, this time from  Deutsche Telekom. Entitled 'Bubbles', it's a massively poignant commercial that we ALL need to see repeatedly right about now. Link below:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4mUhMqgGE 

      Back tomorrow!